Snow?

After last weekend's day worth of sunny and almost 80, Seattle's desire for summer is reverberating. And yet, Friday around 5:30 pm this happened (why does it always choose to snow at rush hour?):



It all melted overnight, but then on Saturday afternoon, we got round two. Here's a photo of the front yard, with all of the fallen blossoms littering the ground around the bush in the front yard – they didn't seem to appreciate Friday's snow.



When it started snowing again this morning, I didn't even bother to go take more photos. Instead, here's the snow from Friday, accumulating on the kitchen window. Such a cozy sight.



And now, that's quite enough of a good thing. We're all convinced. It snows in Seattle. And now it's REALLY time for summer.

Snow

We’ve essentially lost all credibility with our former claim that it never snows in Seattle. I’m really quite sure that in the first three years we lived here, we saw flurries five times. But we’ve had real snow that many times just this winter. The new house is only four miles from the old one, so I doubt that’s the difference...?

In any case, I was so happy that the first day of my parents’ visit was all blue and mountains, and that the third day brought snow that lasted through the night. My mom misses winter now that they’re in Florida, and I thought it was unusually decent of the weather to cooperate.
From her camera, here’s the backyard seen through the living room windows (with tulips in the foreground!):



And she took a picture of the snowy driveway that I just love. Doesn’t it look like it’s black and white? Until you see the headlights, and the brick on the front of the house, and realize that the light out here is just so dim in the winter when it’s cloudy that the color just disappears.

More snow!

It snowed last night, starting around three, and just kept going. Waking up was fun – lots of snow on the ground, and that gold light coming through all of the lacy tree branches was beautiful.

The walk to work this morning was too pretty: white and crunchy. The snow had clearly refrozen a few times, but it gave good traction for walking. All of the branches were feathered, and as the sun hit them they started to melt, so lots of little showers along the sidewalk.

The street ours connects to was still pretty snow and ice covered, but the main street was clear. My peace kept being disrupted by horrible clanking. Several cars were driving along the bare pavement with chains on. This photo is terrible (into the light and I was trying to be quick and sneaky), but this guy on the left actually had them on all four tires.



Given the amount of snow still on his roof, I’m guessing he’d only been driving for a few minutes, and he had a Microsoft tag on his car, so he got up and put the chains on for his 3 mile drive to work. Typical Seattle.

Coming home tonight, the snow on our street (and yard, and roof) was mostly still there. So lovely.

Capping off a weird week for weather

Friday morning, just as I was getting ready to leave for work, I heard what sounded suspiciously like thunder. Sure enough, the sky was charcoal, and the thunder just got louder, as the rain started pouring down. Seattle, despite its rainy reputation, gets almost no thunder, and on the rare occasions that I've heard it, it's generally a solitary crack, and then nothing for another six months.

Friday morning, just as I was getting ready to leave for work, I heard what sounded suspiciously like thunder. Sure enough, the sky was charcoal, and the thunder just got louder, as the rain started pouring down. Seattle, despite its rainy reputation, get almost no thunder, and on the rare occasions that I've heard it, it's generally a solitary crack, and then nothing for another six months.

This was a real storm, though, and lasted almost twenty minutes. I had to try to get a picture of the rain bouncing off the street.



Not exactly the typical view from the front porch!!

The weather seemed to spend itself, and the afternoon looked clear and sunny, from the glimpses I stole out of the neighbour-across-the-hall's office window.

We've had a week of particularly amazing sunsets. Here was last night's at 9:02 (the days are still long!):



There were at least two dozen sailboats in view out on the water, which made the evening particularly pretty.

More respect is due

The weather has impressed me in the last week. Generally I see Seattle as a place with abysmally repetitive weather, dark clouds, and (no offense) sort of weather-hysterical residents. YET, way after rush hour, we had real snow today, and actual snow clouds in the sky. True, work attendance ran at 50%, but people are getting so much more resigned to snow.

My car, decked in snow:




The snow is practically typical at this point! I also took a picture of my view after I turn out of the driveway in the morning. See those snow clouds, all yellow at the horizon? So pretty. It reminds me of driving down Winter Street on the way to swim practice in high school, only with the addition of a lake and major mountains. (Even if I can't see them, I know they're there.) Usually at this time of year, it's just slate gray, with no glitter in the lake, and deep darkness in the sky. I loved the snow clowds, and they lasted for a full day.




The interesting part of the day was actually via email once I got to work. Kevin was all worried whether I'd arrived intact. His mustang (visible beyond the corner of the 4WD Matrix in the top photo) is not ice-worthy given the hills (it's really heavy, really powerful, and doesn't have the tires to be a snow sportscar.) Despite several antilock brake incidents, I really didn't have a problem taking the backroads to work. Snow is snow. But after he sent a video of the situation in Portland (and I heard that he'd seen two accidents while waiting on the corner for the bus to work), I understood the concern. The Portland home video had been taken off someone's apartment balcany, and it looked like some sort of car ballet, as all these vehicles slowly slid down hills, off each other, and accelerated downhill offscreen. It looked so controlled, until you realized that there was someone inside recognizing that they had no control at all and were essentially sledding an SUV. Especially with multitude of hills and the lack of plows and sand, it really is dangerous to drive here in certain conditions. Duly noted.